Epoxy + Urethane ??

[Parc Ferme]

Hello everyone. First post!

Lots of great info on this site. Im glad i found it.

Im going to coat my garage floor with epoxy, but i dont know if i need/want a clear urethane top coat over grey epoxy. I would appreciate some wisdom from folks that have done DIY epoxy coatings with and without urethane top coats. The urethane im looking at effectively doubles my project cost. Im trying figure out if im going to get that much benifit for the cost.

If you dont have urethane, do you wish you did? If you put a top coat down, do you think it was worth it?

How has your coating faired over *** years?

Performance differences between bare epoxy and the top coat.

problems/issues with the urethane - application or performance.

The garage is used for working on cars and motorcyles and general tinkering. Have small mill/drill and plan for a welder in the future. i have made a sub-hobby out of dropping tools.


Any other general epoxy/urethane comments would be great too.


Thanks!

 

[Garage Flooring]

Hello everyone. First post!

Lots of great info on this site. Im glad i found it.

Im going to coat my garage floor with epoxy, but i dont know if i need/want a clear urethane top coat over grey epoxy. I would appreciate some wisdom from folks that have done DIY epoxy coatings with and without urethane top coats. The urethane im looking at effectively doubles my project cost. Im trying figure out if im going to get that much benifit for the cost.

If you dont have urethane, do you wish you did? If you put a top coat down, do you think it was worth it?

How has your coating faired over *** years?

Performance differences between bare epoxy and the top coat.

problems/issues with the urethane - application or performance.

The garage is used for working on cars and motorcyles and general tinkering. Have small mill/drill and plan for a welder in the future. i have made a sub-hobby out of dropping tools.


Any other general epoxy/urethane comments would be great too.


Thanks!

I like a aliphatic urethane for many reasons. I like the look, I like the performance. It seems likes your epoxy is protected and in my opinion it is a lot easier to buff and recoat urethane and keep the floor looking new. Aliphatic is less likely to yellow or crack. Check with Legacy DCS or one of the other epoxy guys here. There are a lot of good ones on this forum.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Urethane benefits:
UV protection for your epoxy (yes it does help slow the yellowing process even though it's clear)
Extra abrasion resistance
Extra chemical resistance (sometimes double the protection)
Seals flake
Extends the gloss
Excellent medium to carry skid-resistance material (really the best way)

If you are going through with the epoxy do not skip the urethane you will regret it.
100% solids clear epoxy topcoat is NOT urethane and will not offer the benefits that urethane does.

If you want a thicker clear choose a polyaspartic urethane and place at ten mils over your flakes.

Hope this helps your decision.

 

[thegarageguy]

Like I tell my clients......its like painting your car and not putting a clear coat on it. Polyurethane or polyaspartic will give you better stain resistance, uv protection, scratch resistance and make your floor last that much longer. Don't let anyone tell you different.

 

[AlphaGarage]

A good epoxy w/o a clear coat still offers a lot of benefits. Eliminates concrete dust, makes spills easy to clean up, makes overall clean up much easier, looks god, smooths out rough concrete, hides flaws, offers protection from dropped items etc.

We have a client who runs a race fab shop, serious floor punishment (he's posted pics here before, I'll see if I can find 'em). With his first facility, since he knew it was temporary, they decided to not use a clear coat. Just recently they moved into a new 6,000 ft2 shop, and again opted to not have a clear coat. The topper is that for the LiquaTile color they went with white both times.

It won't look as pristine for as long a time, but they'll still benefit from the other features.

 

[Lvnaco]

In my opinion, urethane is very hard to apply. We did a 3000sf shop with 2 epoxy coats and then aliphatic urethane. The job was ruined. Legacy gave us instructions that we followed to the t and it turned out so bad I just wanted to cry.
Urethane has to be applied super fast and very lightly rolling by dunking the roll in the bucket.
If I could go back in time I would've never used the top coat...

 

[Garage Flooring]

First of all, you have some advice here from three well respected coating companies. Its what they do and I whole heatedly believe they are pointing you in the right direction.

I have a issue with the one size fits all approach and I do not say this to second guess them. Generally speaking a clear epoxy will be more likely to yellow than a clear aliphatic urethane. Agreed.

Where I disagree is on the Chemical Resistance. There is a sentence I teach my staff and they hear me say it over and over again. I listen to their phone calls and I hear them say it. Its simple 'How do you use your garage'... How do you use your concrete floor... It leads to so many questions. Does your car leak? What does it leak? Ohh its not for a garage, its for a brewery... You use high temp water and sanitizing solution?? Can you send me an MSDS.... Your dogs stay in the garage and urinate on the floor...

Where am I going with this? A car that leaks brake fluid will eat some coatings alive and not touch others while gas or oil might damage the coating that brake fluid was resistant to. What topcoat is best for you is 100% dependent on how you use your garage and what leaks on it. Take what your floor is going to be exposed to and compare it to to the CR chart.

OK, stepping down from my soapbox now

 

[jaye944]

all above is good advise, see my links for more

 

[LsFarm]

Google 'Rust Bullett for Concrete', and read the articles. The humidity-activated Urethane is easy to apply, looks great and I like it much better than the box-store Epoxy coatings.

There is much less prep on new concrete with Urethane, and that saves a lot of money.

Summit Auto Parts has the best shipped price for the Rust Bullett products.

LsF

 

[benwah]

I agree with most of the guys here. Yes use an aliphatic polyurethane. If anything, it is a sacrificial coating that can be re-applied IF you have a bad chemical spill and don't get it cleaned up in time. Be sure, like GarageFlooringLLC said, to compare the chemicals that your floor can be exposed to - to the chemical resistance properties of the urethane you're looking into.